‘Privatisation no remedy for health sector’

kolkata: privatisation will never be a remedy to an ailing health sector in the state, reveals a study on the health sector reforms. the findings of the study criticise recent moves by the state government of inviting private participation in the healthcare sector and offering its resources to them, citing the failure of such endeavours all over the world in recent times. the study titled health sector reforms and impact upon vulnerable groups, conducted by indian statistical institute, madras medical college, centre for economic and social research, hyderababd, university of cambridge, uk and university popeu fabra, spain, claims that the infrastructure of public health management have enough potential to deliver if monitored properly. india is one the only country where 82.3 per cent of total health care expenditure is borne out by private agencies and a mere 16 per cent accounts for the government spending. the total amount spent on health care is five per cent of gdp, where the international average is about 10 per cent, project co-ordinator, dr kasturi sen, a noted scientist and professor in cambridge university, uk. the study notes that wherever health sector has been privatised, the cost of treatment has increased manifold. this is simply due to the profit motive of the private agencies. they know that people will fall ill and seek treatment and most of the times they do not hesitate to buy medical treatment when they need it, the survey claimed. even in china, the cost of medical treatment has escalated in past few years sen added. this comes immediately after demand of various medical organisations in the state last week, including indian medical association and medical service centre, to withdraw private participation in the health sector. a ct scan in the medical college will cost rs 800 from now on, which is higher than even in some of the private nursing homes, said dr subhash chakaraborty, former professor of calcutta medical college. this is precisely what i mean when i speak of profit motive. nowhere in the world, this has been the path to reform in health sector. efficient private sector is the best choice for india if it wants to improve the health sector, sen said, adding people of the country are also often driven to ask for bad health care, so minimum level of awareness. the uk model of offering land to private sector for setting up hospitals has failed as the government realised that they have borrowed money at 10 times the rate it could have borrowed money from the public sector. they all now feel that the next generations will have to pay the price, said sen. the project is being funded by european commission and the final report would be submitted by december 2001. but most of the findings will go against the latest trend of privatisation of the health sector, said experts. considering the increase in population, the progress that we made between 1950 and 1980 was by no means insignificant. but later on, with the trend of globalisation, new experiments started in the health sector, but most of the countries realised soon that it was not the proper way to achieve success, sen claimed. the study indicates to increasing profit margins in the private agencies all over the world. in 1990, the profit from health sector was rs 852 crore but by 1999 it jumped to rs 24,837 crore in developing countries. the need for high-tech health care facilities was not to be the priority, the survey claims, before improving upon the basics. cuba has made a significant development on the health sector and now the cuban doctors are visiting uk to teach them about managing health care. they just concentrated on preventive and community medicine said sen.